As the title suggests, this year’s Inktober was the most challenging yet. Not because of the prompts, which were fun, tricky, and rich in double-meaning potential as ever, but because of the amount of Other Life Things going on in the background.
That’s why I think this year is probably going to be my last Inktober.
This year I had some major excitements. After more than a year of trying, we finally bought our first home. In the UK this is quite a marathon due to the market. Every property has a ton of buyers, lots of them with loads more money than us, having sold up in London and trying to move out to my area. Not helped by the *sshole estate agents who lie and trick their way through the process, screwing over buyers wherever they can to get a higher commission.
(note – for US audience.. we don’t have ‘realtors’ in this country who are on the side of the buyer – all buyers are completely on their own and therefore regularly get screwed over in favour of the seller).
This was finally achieved in the summer – and although my new studio is currently just full of boxes (we don’t own furniture yet.. fun times!), at least we’re in.
Inktober on the road
In the meantime, we had already planned a trip to the US to see some in-laws who have not been well during/since Covid. When did this happen?
October.. obviously. 🕺
This led to double-trouble.
a) I hadn’t paid any attention to October being Inktober and therefore hadn’t done ANY prep
b) Because of a), I hadn’t made a plan to carve out any time to do it!
So I found myself travelling in the US, having to find time to draw, edit and post. I can confirm that at least one post went up during a 12 hour lay over in Boston airport at 4am 😲😲
The end of Inktober
I know Inktober is only once a year, but there’s no way I can commit to 31 days of activity any more. From now on I’m going to be focussing on shipping the backlog of books that y’all have been waiting on for over a year.
One final Inktober publication?
Every year after Inktober I’ve made a book, or some other product based on that year’s 31 drawings. So this year, rather than a standalone 2022 publication, I’m planning a retrospective with every cartoon from the last 4 years’ of Inktober.
And yes I know, I have a backlog of other books and projects I’ve totally failed to finish this year. Bring on 2023 and let’s hope it’s a lot more boring than this year was!
fishescircle.com 